1. Chapter 22 – The Global South on the Global Stage, 1900 – Present
The End of Empire
Chapter 22 – The Global South on the Global Stage, 1900 – Present

2. The End of Empire in World History
India, Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel won independence in the late-1940s.
The age of African independence came between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s.
Imperial breakup was not new, but popular sovereignty was.

3. The End of Empire in World History (Cont’d)
While empires had fallen in the past, this was the first time that the forces of nationalism combined with the desire for national self-determination to form new nation-states that would be equal to the nation-states that had held them as colonial subjects. As part of this process, many of the formerly colonized peoples had to reassert their sense of self and dignity after years of racist denigration.
Another major change was that the entire concept of empires was discredited as the world was to be divided into states that represented the people’s will and desires.

4. The End of Empire in World History (Cont’d)
Fall of many empires in the twentieth century: - Austrian and Ottoman empires collapsed in the wake of World War I. - The Russian Empire collapsed, but was soon recreated into the U.S.S.R. - The German and Japanese empires ended following World War II.
Disintegration of the USSR (1991) was propelled by national self-determination (creation of 15 new states).

5. Explaining African and Asian Independence
Contradictions: - Christianity didn’t fit the reality of colonial racism, exploitation, and poverty. - Europeans’ democratic values were in conflict with colonial dictatorship. - the ideal of national self-determination was at odds with repression of the same in the colonies.
Hence the powerful force of nationalism, which fueled the process of European empire-building played a major role in its demise.

6. Explaining African and Asian Independence (Cont’d)
The timing of Decolonization: - the world wars had weakened Europe and undermined “European superiority.” - the United States and the Soviet Union opposed older European colonial empires. - the U.N. provided a platform for anti-colonialism.
Several generations of Western rule had produced various new elites that could use their Western education, their military service for the colonizing power, and their knowledge of how to mobilize a mass-based nationalist party to challenge colonialism.

7. Explaining African and Asian Independence (Cont’d)
The role of specific groups and individuals: - often on the defensive, colonial powers themselves planned for independence of the colonies. - increased pressure from the nationalist movements. - millions of ordinary people joined in, developed an ideology, and negotiated charismatic leaders (Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh; Mandela) led many independence movements.
In settler colonies or intransigent empires like the Portuguese territories, volunteers joined the ranks of freedom fighters to end foreign or white domination.

8. Decolonization of Africa and Asia

9. The Case of India: Ending British Rule
Before 1900, few people of the Indian subcontinent thought of themselves as “Indians:” - cultural identity was primarily local, rooted in family, caste, village, language, region, tribe, and religion. - diversity was enormous.
British rule promoted a growing sense of Indian identity: - unlike earlier foreign rulers, the British didn’t assimilate. - Indians shared more similarities to each other than to their British rulers. - British communications and administrative networks, schools, and use of the English language bound India’s regions and people together.

10. The Case of India: Ending British Rule (Cont’d)
The most important expression of an all-Indian identity took form in the Indian National Congress (INC), which was established in 1885.
An association of English-educated, high-caste Hindus: - first asked for a greater role in British India. - British rejected their claim to speak for all Indians. - the INC became popular post-WWI. - in 1917, Britain promised a future of self-government. - British attacks on the Ottoman Empire antagonized India’s Muslims. - repressive actions by the British caused outrage.

11. The Case of India: Ending British Rule (Cont’d)
Mohandas Gandhi ( ) was born in the Gujarat province in western India to a business caste.
Gandhi, although a mediocre student, studied law in England but wasn’t a very successful lawyer.
In 1893, Gandhi accepted a job in South Africa and joined a movement to fight racial segregation: - he developed a notion of India that included both Hindus and Muslims. - he also developed the philosophy of satyagraha (“truth force”): active but nonviolent confrontation.

12. The Case of India: Ending British Rule (Cont’d)
Gandhi returned to India in 1915, and later became a leader of the INC: - during the 1920s and 1930s, mass campaigns that won massive public support. - the British responded with repression and greater political concessions. - Gandhi transformed the INC into a mass organization.
Gandhi won the name “Mahatma” (Great Soul): - his radicalism attacked not just colonial rule but also the mistreatment of India’s untouchables and the evils of modernization; return to self-sufficient villages.

13. The Case of India: Ending British Rule (Cont’d)
Especially important was a growing Muslim/Hindu divide: - in 1906, creation of an All-India Muslim League. - Hindu politicians defined the struggle in religious terms.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, head of the Muslim League: - argued that Muslim areas should be separate (Pakistan). - “independence” in 1947 created two dominions. - Pakistan “land of the pure” (Muslim). - India (secular but mostly Hindu).
The process was accompanied by massive violence: - 1 million died and 12 million refugees relocated. - in 1948, a Hindu extremist assassinated Gandhi.

14. Partition of India

15. Gandhi and Nehru (1st prime minister of India 1947)

16. The Case of South Africa: Ending Apartheid
South Africa won freedom from Great Britain in 1910: - but its government was controlled by a white settler minority (less than 20% of the population). - the black South Africans had no political rights, their struggle was against an internal opponent. - the white population was split: - the British descendants had economic superiority the Afrikaners (or Boers) of Dutch descent had political dominance, and antagonisms lingered from the Boer War ( ). - however, both white groups felt threatened by any move toward black majority rule.

17. The Case of South Africa: Ending Apartheid (Cont’d)
In the early 1900s, South Africa had a mature, industrial economy (gold and diamond mining): - by the 1960s, it had major foreign investments and loans (various industries and manufacturing). - black South Africans were dependent on the white-controlled economy.
The issue of race was overwhelmingly prominent: - the policy of apartheid (1948) tried to keep blacks and whites completely separate, while retaining black labor power. - enormous repressive powers (pass laws) enforced social segregation.

18. Examples of Apartheid

19. The Case of South Africa: Ending Apartheid (Cont’d)
Various forms of opposition arose to contest the injustices in South Africa.
The African National Congress (ANC) founded in 1912: - like India’s INC, it consisted of elite Africans who wanted a voice in society. - for 40 years, the ANC was peaceful and moderate. - in the 1950s, shift to nonviolent civil disobedience. - the government responded with overwhelming repression: 69 unarmed demonstrators shot at Sharpville in the ANC was banned and its leadership imprisoned.

20. The Case of South Africa: Ending Apartheid (Cont’d)
Underground nationalist leaders turned to sabotage and assassination: preparation for guerilla warfare. - opposition came to focus on student groups. - Soweto uprising in 1976 (hundreds were killed) was the start of the spreading violence. - organization of strikes, beginning in 1986, by the Congress of South African Trade Unions which involved some 2 millions workers.

21. The Case of South Africa: Ending Apartheid (Cont’d)
Growing international pressure: - exclusion from international sporting events. - economic boycotts. - the withdrawal of private investment funds.
Negotiations began in the late-1980s: - key apartheid policies were abandoned. - Mandela was freed, and the ANC was legalized.
In 1994, national elections brought the ANC to power: - apartheid was ended without major bloodshed. - the most important threat was a number of separatist and “Africans only” groups, which has led to violence.

22. Protest Against Apartheid

23. Nelson Mandela

24. Experiments with Freedom
With freedom this problem arises: How to create economic development, industrial growth, unification, and political participation?
Third World – developing countries; the Global South.
Between 1950 and 2000, developing nations contained 70 percent of the world’s population.
Experiments of political order were inhibited by: - explosive population growth. - high expectations for independence. - cultural diversity, with little loyalty to a central state.

25. The Third World

26. Experiments in Political Order
The British, French, and Belgians set up democratic institutions in their African colonies: - few still survived by the early 1970s. - many were swept away by military coups. - some evolved into one-party systems.
In India, Western-style democracy succeeded: - power was handed over gradually. - many more Indians than Africans had administrative and technical skills at the time of independence. - the INC embraced the nationalist movement; less internal discord than in Africa.

27. Experiments in Political Order (Cont’d)
Africans initially rejected democracy. Arguments posed: - not ready for democracy or lacked some necessary element? - communal culture was not compatible with party politics? - democracy was inadequate to the task of development?
Economic disappointment discredited early African democracies: - poor economic performance since independence. - widespread economic hardship despite those having high school and college degrees.

28. Experiments in Political Order (Cont’d)
The well-educated elite benefited the most, obtaining high-paying bureaucratic jobs that caused resentment.
Economic resentment found expression in ethnic conflicts.
Repeatedly, the military took power in a crisis. By the early 1980s, the military had intervened in 30 of Africa’s 46 independent states.
Since then, Western-style democracy has resurfaced.

29. Map of African Dictators

30. Experiments in Political Order (Cont’d)
With postwar economic growth in Latin America, there were rising left-wing political and organized labor movements. An example: the Cuban Revolution in 1959 which brought Fidel Castro to power.
As these groups threatened both domestic and foreign (American) property owners, military coups overthrew leftist leaders in dirty wars. An example: the overthrow and murder of Chile’s Marxist president Salvador Allende (Castro’s ally) in a CIA-sponsored military coup in September 1973, and the institution of almost two decades of brutal military rule by General Pinochet.
Yet as the Cold War ended, there was a transition to democracy across the world. Importantly, democracy came to be viewed as a universal value, not a Western imposition.

31. Military Regimes in Latin America

32. Experiments in Economic Development
Problems: - little infrastructure for modern development. - most developing countries didn’t have leverage in negotiating with wealthy nations and corporations. - experts in “development economics” disagreed and changed their minds on which strategies to pursue.
Until the fall of the Soviet Union, many developing countries followed the state-run model. It failed.
After the fall of the U.S.S.R., Western pressures pushed democracy on developing markets. It led to rapid economic growth but also inequalities and conflict.

33. Experiments in Economic Development (Cont’d)
East Asia has been the most successful in specializing industrial production for an export market: - in the 1990s, India opened itself to the world market. - several Latin American states developed industrially.
Most of Africa, much of the Arab world, and parts of Asia didn’t catch up and standards of living often declined since the late-1960s.
No general agreement about why there were such great variations economic development.

34. Map of Turkey and Iran

35. Experiments with Culture: The Role of Islam in Turkey and Iran
Turkey and Iran have taken different approaches.
Turkey emerged in the wake of World War I, and was led by General Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: - major cultural revolution in the 1920s and 1930s. - effort to create a thoroughly modern, Western society. - much of the Islamic parts of society were abolished (the caliphate, Qur'anic schools, Sharia Law). - effort to keep Islam personal, rather than an official part of public life.

36. Experiments with Culture (Cont’d)
Men ordered not to wear the fez; many elite women gave up the veil.
Women gained legal rights in divorce, inheritance, and child custody: - polygamy was abolished women received the right to the vote in 1934.
The government remained authoritarian, although a parliamentary system emerged after 1938.
Atatürk’s reforms met much opposition and many were overturned in the decades after his death, but his goal of a secular state remains central in Turkey.

37. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

38. Experiments with Culture (Cont’d)
Growing opposition to Iran’s Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s (r ) modernizing, secularizing, and U.S.-supported government: - many of the shah’s reforms offended traditional Islamic practices. - the mosque became the main center of opposition to the government. - Shia ulama had stayed independent from the state. - Shia leaders became the voice of opposition, especially the cleric Ayatollah Khomeini ( ).

39. Experiments with Culture (Cont’d)
The ailing shah was forced to abdicate in 1979 following massive urban demonstrations, strikes, and military defections.
Khomeini assumed control of the state (The Islamic Republic of Iran): - established the sharia as the law of the land. - secular officials were purged. - rejection of many Western practices as anti-Islamic.
Women were now required to wear the hijab.
Iran has continued to work on economic modernity.

40. The Shah and Ayatollah
Ayatollah Khomeini often spoke to millions about how the U.S.A. is the “devil” and how Israel will be “wiped off the face of the earth.”